The Ministry is Primarily Dedicated to Documenting Current Complaints in the British and World Press Regarding Mr Dick Van Dyke's Poor Attempt at a Cockney Accent in the Motion Picture Mary Poppins Half a Century Ago.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Saddest Love Story

I’m sure as a child I realised there must have been something between Mary and Bert. After all, as other movies had shown me, if there was a male and female character of the same age and species, they would naturally be in love by the film’s end. Mary and Bert never so much as kiss in the film, but the flirtation is clear and, as I discovered yesterday, the on-screen chemistry between Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke is palpable. There are meaningful looks, warm compliments, tender physical contact, but at the end of the film Mary is gone, flying off into the smoggy London sky, and the romance between herself and Bert remains unrequited.

From the beginning of the film the connection between the two is established. As Bert attempts to earn a few bob as a one-man band in the film’s initial scene the wind picks up and he is overtaken by a kind of reverie. Lost in the moment he casts his eyes skyward and with an anticipatory chill (and a terrible cockney accent) sings:

Can’t put me finger on what lies in store
But I feel what’s to ‘appen, all ‘appened before.